Does Altruism Mitigate Free-riding and Welfare Loss?

A warm-glow motivation for charitable giving has recently been explored as a possible solution to the problem of inefficient private provision of public goods. However, the introduction of warm-glow affects both the efficient level of public good provision as well as the equilibrium level. Hence it is not clear whether warm-glow mitigates or exacerbates inefficiency. We revisit Andreoni's (1989) model of impure altruism and formally analyze this question. Cornes and Sandler''s (1986) index of easy riding and a version of Debreu''s (1951) coefficient of resource utilization are used as measures of free-riding and welfare loss.altruism

A note on duplication of R&D and R&D subsidies

We show that the presumed incompatibility of uncoordinated R&D and competition is not fundamental, but hinges on the nature of R&D spillovers. As a consequence, R&D subsidies may be more effective than previously thought.Duplication

La prévision en temps réel des charges de polluants dans un réseau d'assainissement urbain

L'objectif principal du présent travail est la prévision en temps réel des charges de polluants dans un réseau d'assainissement urbain. La méthodologie préconisée dans cette étude se base sur deux outils. En premier lieu, le modèle de la courbe de tarage a été utilisé afin d'exprimer la corrélation entre les charges de polluants et les débits de ruissellement. Ce modèle a été sélectionné en raison de sa simplicité et de la disponibilité des paramètres nécessaires pour sa mise en œuvre. L'hypothèse de synchronisme systématique entre les pointes de l'hydrogramme et du pollutogramme dans ce modèle constitue une des faiblesses que nous proposons de surmonter dans le cadre du présent travail. Ainsi, le modèle de la courbe de tarage a été modifié par l'introduction d'un terme de déphasage qu'on identifie en temps réel. D'autre part, la constance des paramètres mis en jeu dans le modèle classique de la courbe de tarage constitue un autre obstacle pour la reproductibilité des phénomènes au cours du même événement et d'un événement à l'autre. Afin de surmonter cette deuxième faiblesse, le filtre de Kalman a été utilisé pour identifier les paramètres d'un modèle dynamique en fonction des erreurs de prévision constatées à chaque pas de temps. La méthodologie a été testée avec succès sur le secteur I de la ville de Verdun du Québec. Le modèle établi a été validé à l'aide de trois critères de performance, à savoir, le coefficient de Nash, le rapport des pointes mesurées/prévues et leur déphasage. Selon ces critères, les résultats trouvés par le modèle dynamique concordent bien avec les mesures.It is normally unrealistic to send the total combined water volume generated during a rainfall event to a wastewater treatment plant and this approach is not retained as a viable solution when physical and economic constraints need to be accounted for. It becomes therefore pertinent to reduce the pollution from a given area by limiting water treatment to the most polluted portion of the runoff volume. For this purpose, various municipalities have expressed an urgent need for an automated system that could dynamically manage all the hydraulic components of their urban drainage basins. However, such a system of management in real time requires short-term forecasting of the water quality in the drainage basins. The main object of this work is the development of tools for the real-time forecasting of pollutant loads in an urban sewer network. The method used in this study is based on two tools: the rating curve model and the Kalman filter.The rating curve model is used to explain the correlation between pollutant loads and runoff. This model was selected because of its simplicity and the availability of the parameters necessary for its implementation. The rating curve model has several important characteristics. First of all, the formulation of the model is independent of the accumulation phase and the load accumulated over the basin is assumed to be unlimited. A second characteristic consists in the normalized form in which runoff is present in the model as a flow rate, so that the rating curve model can integrate the quantitative and qualitative aspects of urban runoff in a simple formulation, which requires parameters available in real time.The assumption of systematic overlap between the hydrograph and pollutograph peaks constitutes the main weakness of this model, which we propose to overcome within the framework of this work. Thus, the rating curve model was modified by the introduction of a lag term identified in real time. In order to define the time lag parameter in real time, a mobile window has been programmed to scan the two observation vectors of flow rates and loads. Theoretically speaking, the time lag corresponds to the maximum of the cross correlation function between flow rate and load vectors observed in real time. Three cases are therefore possible. In the first case, an increase of the pollutograph precedes that of the hydrograph and the time lag is positive. In this case and in a context of real-time management, loads are determined using a forecast model for flow rates. Measured flow rates are considered in this work as forecasted flow rates. If the hydrograph precedes the pollutograph, the time lag "d" is negative and the loads are related to the flow rate measured at an instant that precedes forecast time by "d" times the time step. When, finally, the two curves are perfectly synchronous, the "d" parameter is equal to zero and the flow rates are forecasted on the basis of the flow rates measured at the time of forecasting. The model is thus sufficiently flexible and adapted to the various foreseeable conditions.In addition, the constancy of the parameters concerned in the classic rating curve model constitutes another weakness with respect to the reproducibility of the phenomena during the same event and from one event to another. In order to overcome this second weakness, the Kalman filter was used to identify the parameters of a dynamic model according to the forecast errors noted with each time step. Use of the Kalman filter also allowed us to eliminate the calibration procedure required by the static model. With this filter, the dynamic model continuously readjusts its parameters to satisfy the non-stationary behaviour of hydrological phenomena.The methodology was tested successfully on the sector I of the town of Verdun (Quebec). The established model was validated using three performance criteria, namely, the Nash coefficient, the peak ratio and the lag between measured and forecasted values. According to these criteria, the results obtained with the dynamic model agree well with measurements

Equilibrium Selection and the Rate of Convergence in Coordination Games with Simultaneous Play

We apply the dynamic stochastic framework proposed in the recent evolutionary literature to a class of coordination games played simultaneously by the entire population. In these games, payoffs whence best replies are determined by a summary statistic of the population strategy profile. We demonstrate that with simultaneous play, the equilibrium selection depends crucially on how best responses to the summary statistic remain piece-wise constant. In fact, all the strict Nash equilibria in the underlying stage game can be declared stochastically stable depending on how the best response mapping generates piece-wise constant best responses. Furthermore, we show that if the best response mapping is sufficiently asymmetric, the expected waiting time until the unique stochastically stable state is reached is of the same order as the mutation rate, even in the limit as the population size grows to infinity.equilibrium selection; stochastic stability; waiting time; rate of convergence

Discrete Public Goods with Incomplete Information

We investigate a simultaneous discrete public good provision game with incomplete information. To use the terminology of Admati and Perry (1991), we consider both contribution and subscription games. In the former, contributions are not refunded if the project is not completed, while in the latter they are. In the presence of complete information about individuals' valuations for the public good, the difference between the equilibrium outcomes of a subscription game and a contribution game is not significant. However, there is both casual evidence from the fund-raising literature and experimental evidence that subscription games are ``superior '', i.e., a refund increases the chance of providing the good given that it is efficient to do so. Our analysis shows that this is indeed the case in the presence of incomplete information. We compute a symmetric equilibrium for the subscription game and show that it is not necessarily efficient. This inefficiency stems from the difficulties arising in coordinating to overcome the free-rider problem in the presence of incomplete information. Although it is well known that informational disparities impose limits on the efficiency of outcomes, the novel feature of our analysis is to explicitly model the resulting trade-off --- when deciding how much to contribute towards the public good --- between increasing the likelihood of provision and creating incentives for free-riding by the other player. Moreover, we show that for the contribution game, ``contributing zero'' is the only equilibrium for a given range of the fixed cost of provision and for a family of distributions.public goods; incomplete information; continuous distribution

The Role of R&D Technology in Asymmetric Research Joint Ventures

We characterize asymmetric equilibria in two-stage process innovation games and show that they are prevalent in the different models of R&D technology considered in the literature. Indeed, cooperation in R&D may be accompanied by high concentration in the product market. We show that while such an increase may be profitable, it may be socially inefficient.Research and Development, Research Joint Ventures, Process Innovation Games

Dry reforming of associated natural gas using catalytic membrane reactors.

The mitigation and utilization of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), are among the most important challenges in the area of energy research. Dry reforming of propane (C3H8) (DRP), which uses both CO2 and C3H8 as reactants, is a potential method to utilize the previously-mentioned gases in the atmosphere. Associated natural gas containing high concentrations of CO2 and C3H8 could therefore be utilized for hydrogen and synthesis gas (syngas) production in the near future, without need for the removal of CO2 from the source gas. Thus, the DRP reaction is a suitable process to convert C3H8 and CO2 to more useful raw materials. The reforming of (CO2) with associated natural gas can be adapted to generate a synthetic gas having 1:1 hydrogen to carbon monoxide (CO) ratio. This type of gas synthesis may be used during the production of a large number of industrially-important chemicals. From an environmental point of view, this reaction can also be used to mitigate the so-called "greenhouse effect", since the conversion of these gases into valuable chemical(s) and feed stocks could alleviate and significantly reduce the emissions of CO2 and associated natural gas into the atmosphere. In this thesis, a catalytic membrane reactor has been used to carry out experiments on the conversion of reactants, product selectivity and distribution, catalyst selection and activity. Interpretation of the reaction mechanism and kinetics of this important reaction are also presented. Previous experimental research has been centered on the reactor development, catalyst impregnation and the feasible applications in industry. The Group VIII metals of the periodic table of elements, supported on oxides, have been found to be effective for this reaction. Carbon deposition causing catalyst deactivation was found to be one of the major challenges inhibiting the large-scale application of the reaction. Nickel (Ni)-based catalysts impregnated on an alumina wash-coated tubular membrane support showed carbon-free operation and was thus used to generate important data regarding the performance of membrane reactors for this reaction. In this work, the membrane reactor investigated for CO2 reforming with associated natural gas operated in pore-flow through mode, using a catalyst-impregnated porous membrane that had no separating functions, but which acted as a support for the catalyst. The catalyst was therefore immobilized as highly-dispersed nanoparticles in the pore of the membrane structure. CO2 and associated natural gas were forced through the pores of the membrane where the catalytic reaction took place. The membrane, in effect, worked as a contact zone for the reactants and the catalyst. Because of fast convective flow, internal diffusion limitations were reduced as the products were immediately removed from the membrane pore, avoiding product accumulation within the membrane and therefore eliminating consecutive reactions. As a consequence, the effective product yield was not influenced by mass transfer limitations and selectivity for the desired product could be increased. The reverse water-gas-shift reaction was a possible cause for the reduced yield of hydrogen. The reduction or elimination of the mass transfer limitation is particulary important for CO2 reforming with associated natural gas, where there is a high propensity for consecutive reactions. This research investigated the catalytic dry reforming of propane over Zr/Ni/Pd/Cu/-Al2O3 catalysts under the temperature range 600ºC/873.15ºK to 700ºC/973.15 ºK. These catalysts (supported on alpha-Al2O3) were chosen for this study because primary studies showed better selectivity and activity, and smaller deactivation resistance than for other catalysts. The thermal structure, pore size distribution, gas permeability and chemical structure of such Hybrid Ceramic Membranes (HCMs) were characterised using various methods, including gas permeability measurement, Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM), Accelerated Surface Area and Porosimetry analysis (ASAP), nitrogen Adsorption, Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDXA) and gas permeation mechanisms through the catalytic porous membrane. The initial experimental results from the HCMs exhibited good thermal stability, gas permeability and hydrophilic properties, as the accompanied water vapour that was formed could permeate through membranes better than the gases that resulted from the dry reforming of propane with CO2 (C3H6, C2H6, C2H4, CH4 and CO). Preliminary experiments were conducted to check the working condition of the catalyst testing unit. The results were quantitatively analysed and a typical productive reactive run was selected as a representative sample. The experimental reactive runs were conducted using three different sets of ceramic membrane supports under various operating conditions, including pressure at 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 bars, temperature at 600ºC/873.15ºK, 650ºC/923.15ºK and 700ºC/973.15ºK, and overall inlet premixed reactant fed gas flow rates of 100ml/min, 200ml/min and 300ml/min, fed at a flow ratio of 1:1, 1:2 and 2:1. The best experimental reactant fed gas conversion results of 34%, and 58% of CO2 and C3H8 respectively were obtained at a pressure of 2 bar, a temperature of 650ºC/923.15ºK and a flow rate of 200ml/min that was fed at ratio of 2:1. The production gas selectivities were of 68%, 25%, 28%, 26%, and 55% for C3H6, C2H6, C2H4, CH4, and CO respectively and liquid yield namely water. Thus a catalytic membrane reactor (CMR) for the dry reforming of CO2 and propane was presented along with its typical performance characteristics. This reactor structure was implemented here to achieve an efficient integration not only on the reactor section but also in the process scale as recommended in this study